Oenologists we are not, but we’ve done more than our fair share of winery tours and wine tastings around the world, and even a wine tasting course. Initially we weren’t really too thrilled to learn that to do wine tasting in Mendoza wineries you need to book a 2-hour tour. Sure, we’re always interested in learning a bit more about a wine, but we don’t need to hear yet again about steel tanks, fermentation processes and the merits of French vs American oak.

But we’re so glad we did. We’ve never had such informative wine tours as those we’ve had in Argentina. Led by sommeliers and agronomic engineers turned wine makers with a passion for what they’re doing and an enthusiasm to share their knowledge, we’ve learned a great deal more about the science and art of winemaking here.

We’ve had four quite different wine tours and tasting experiences, ranging from the old school large-scale, to the fun-loving Bacchus style, through to the tiny family experimental winery. Along the way we learned that Mendoza wines are so much more than just Malbecs.

El Enemigo: The Enemy Within

45 minutes from central Mendoza, the grounds of Bodega El Enemigo and its restaurant Casa Vigil are designed to be one of those places where time has no meaning and you can easily while away an afternoon without realizing it. There’s plenty of space to wander the grounds and parts of the vineyard, or sit and chill under the trees as you admire the artwork scattered through the garden. The restaurant is divided into three different areas so while it seats well over 100 people, wherever you are sitting feels intimate.

We chose to visit El Enemigo winery because it has been awarded the highest points of any Cabernet Franc in the world, with 100 points. And Al likes a good Cab Franc. Interestingly, it wasn’t the showcase CF that caught our tastebuds, but the delicious Chardonnay. Full bodied and with a nice crisp, dry finish. Yum.

It’s a very young winery, having just started in 2009. But it has serious street cred, as the the founding partners are the daughter of one of the biggest names in Mendoza wines, Nicholas Zapata, with her business partner who is the chief winemaker at Bodega Catana Zapata. The name El Enemigo relates to the enemy within being our greatest struggle.

Our visit started with a little glitch, as we’d assumed we were coming for lunch but they’d assumed we take a tour first. The only tour at that time was in Spanish. (Booking through WhatsApp can be a blessing and a curse with behind the scenes translations masking the fact we’re not actually Spanish speakers). So plenty of nodding and smiling was done on both sides of the tour, and luckily the grounds were stunning. It also helps that they hand you a glass of wine before the tour even starts.

While Mendoza is famous for its new world wine styles, El Enemigo has a focus on the old world and French varieties. They use those funky concrete eggs that look like cartoon space ships.

The owner is a soil engineer so he dug a hole in the ground to demonstrate the soil of the region.

Following the tour, our sommelier for lunch guided us through the tasting of six wines, including two different vintages of their Gran El Enemigo Cabernet Franc, with bottomless glasses at no extra charge. In the end we were there for three hours and could have taken the 4pm English tour. But no.

If you are in Mendoza you will have lots of options for experiencing the El Enemigo wines. We later learned that this pair are well known in the local industry for establishing a bit of an ‘empire’, with several beautiful places to visit and even a wine shop in the tiny Mendoza airport. We visited the original winery in Maipú, at Videla Aranda 7008, M5519 Maipú.

Luján de Cuyo

Maipú and Luján de Cuyo are the two oldest wine growing areas of Mendoza. These days they’ve almost been engulfed into the area of Mendoza city and they feel very much like the old wineries you visit in Europe that are behind large walls on the outskirts of cities.

Luján de Cuyo was the first Argentinian wine region to be recognized as an appellation. The local wine makers sought this out in the early 1990s as part of the drive to increase international awareness of Malbec which was a grape not well known by wine drinkers outside Argentina. To carry this registration a Malbec must have 85% Malbec grape, at least 6 months in oak and cannot be released earlier than 18 months after harvest.

As we would learn, the region is still evolving and they are considering that in fact there are several different regions in their own right even within the Uco Valley centred around Tupungato, Tunuyán and San Carlos.

We already talked about some of the vineyards that we visited in Luján de Cuyo in our Mendoza post, including Viamante and Bodega La Garde.

DiamAndes: Supersize Me

‘We’re concerned that we don’t want to experience what Australia went through with relying on Shiraz as a key export and then consumer demand drops away’ explains Francisco, our young tour guide at DiamAndes. He’s specifically chosen to not include too many Malbecs in the wines we will taste because he wants to demonstrate to us that Mendoza can produce other excellent varieties.

DiamAndes was our super-scale winery we chose to visit, and it had the expected huge scale operation with a giant, austere building. But the greeting was warm and very friendly. DiamAndes is in the Uco Valley, about 90 minutes south of Mendoza City.

It’s part of the Clos de Los Siete group of wineries, which is a little piece of Bordeaux in Argentina. It was originally set up in 1998 by seven prominent Bordeaux wine families, and 4 remain today. They operate independently, with the exception of gathering their top wines from each season to contribute to a showcase blend under the banner of Clos de Siete. They only grow traditional Bordeaux varieties and use traditional French methods.

What is interesting is that these French varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay thrive here. Old World wine know-how would tell you that certain grape varieties need cooler conditions and low altitudes. Despite this, some of the pioneer wine growers in the area discovered they could grow French varieties of grapes in the hot weather and high altitudes of 1,000m.

It was a PhD student who discovered the reason (Go science!). Local university studies have found that with the elevation, the sunlight is more intense here, which leads the grapes to develop thicker skins as protection. This gives more flavour and helps retain the natural acidity and full flavour. As a result they don’t need additives to increase acidity and they tend not to use new oak to add flavour – they have plenty of their own.

There was just two of us on the tour, so we were able to take our time and ask loads of questions. Francisco was very knowledgeable about Argentinian wines and eager to answer lots of our more obscure questions.

We’ve been in Mendoza long enough that we’ve adopted the local approach to wine tasting: one or at the most two wineries in one day. Very different to what we’ve done in other countries, where we’d easily drop in to three or four in a day. So after our 90 minute tour and tasting, we opted to stay for a 2-hour three course lunch.

A handy guide to ordering meat in Argentina.

Francisco chuckles as he nods his head in agreement. He’s honesty baffled by the idea of people wanting to visit three wineries in one day. Why?

La Azul: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Table

If we give only one piece of advice for a visit to Uco Valley it would to visit La Azul. What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

La Azul winery has a reputation as being a fun place to have lunch, and its Bacchus-like attitude to wine tasting helps make for a lively time. Again, not a place you’re likely to leave and then do another tasting. In our 1:30pm reservation confirmation they mentioned we would need to leave… by 6pm.

When we arrive at 1:30pm everything is very calm. We’re seated in the patio area on brightly coloured chairs with grape vines cascading from the doorways leading out to a grassy yard area. We’ve learned our lesson with Argentinian lunches, and go for the three rather than five course set menu.

As we’ve experienced before, the meal comes with a matched wine tasting. But here at La Azul they take things a step further than our previous ‘bottomless tasting’ experiences. Each of the five(!) bottles was left on the table for us to continue to top up our wine glasses with whatever we fancied.

Around 2pm the live saxophonist starts playing requests, and about half an hour later the party begins. People are singing and whistling, dancing breaks out on the lawn, and the wine flows and the food continues.

Note: If this has inspired you to visit, make sure to book at the La Azul located on Camino del Vinos. Google maps shows this and also another Bodega La Azul about 15 minutes drive away. They send you a link when you book.

Bodega Familia Zaina: Let the Tarot Speak

As we pull into Bodega Familia Zaina there’s no manicured lawns or fancy building. There’s an old adobe family home with a large shed attached. An old guy sits out the front and responds to our somewhat quizzical looks with a gesture to go inside. We’re still in the Uco Valley, but this is the antithesis of the giant sprawling vineyards we’d associated with this region.

Inside we’re greeted by the wonderful Federico, one of the owners and wine makers at Bodega Familia Zaina. He and his brothers own the winery together, and are all agronomists and engineers who have been working in the wine industry for all of their lives. They started making wines themselves 10 years ago as a way of experimenting with ideas that they couldn’t do in their regular jobs. 6 years ago they started selling wines and it’s gaining popularity to the point his brother is setting up a full winery up the road.

There is no tour of their facilities or their vines. It’s just Federico, the wines, some coca (a Mallorcan dish like pizza flat bread) and a chat as you sit in what was the family kitchen. It’s perfect.

He explains that this winery is the result of his family coming full circle. When his grandfather immigrated from Italy, he worked in a vineyard that he eventually took over. When his grandfather died, the family inherited a large number of vineyards but sold off the attached winery. Two generations later, they’re back making wine and setting up a winery.

We have a wide ranging conversation over the course of a few hours, everything from wine growing to contemporary Argentinian political history and their current economy, through to Argentinian beliefs in witches and the mystical. This last topic came up because their original labels were all based on tarot cards and when we asked if his family used them he explained that his grandfather used to regularly visit a witch in Maipu for advice on life decisions. Federico’s take is that when it comes to spirituality, even though they have been heavily influenced by the Spanish colonization and are Catholic, Argentinians still retain some of the old ways of the indigenous people and believe in the mystical. Once again that mystical realism.

Our tasting expands to include bottles that aren’t even really available for sale anymore; being such a small batch winery, when a wine’s gone it’s gone. But we do manage to snag one of the last bottles of a beautiful Malbec blend ‘La Torre’. As we get ready to leave Federico explains that Juan (you know Juan, like we’ve been buddies for years) is outside preparing for some kind of pagan ritual party they are holding before the start of Lent.

Here’s one we prepared earlier. 

As we pull out of the driveway and wave to Federico, we agree that we’re not sure they really need to offer tastings as it’s such as a small batch winery. We have an inkling that Federico just enjoys it.  

In A Nutshell: Wine Tasting in Mendoza

• We are constantly amazed at how inexpensive the vineyards and restaurants that we’ve visited are. We keep looking at each other thinking ‘That can’t possibly be right.’
• Luco de Cujo and Maipu regions are both easily accessible from Mendoza city. Uco Valley is possible as a day trip, but it’s so much better if you can spend a few days in the area.
• There’s a few options for tasting. Not all wineries offer all options. You can do a tour and tasting, or lunch with a tasting, or some places allow you to just have a glass of any wine.
• Drop in tastings are possible in Luco de Cuyo but not as common in Maipu or Uco Valley. Best to contact the wineries and ask, You won’t be allowed in the front gate without a reservation. Some of the big wineries are really slow to respond to requests to visit and some do book out in advance so book early if you really want to go somewhere specific.
• Lunch and tasting combinations tend to be a little different to other parts of the world. The tasting is done at the table, while you have your meal and you can have as much of each wine as you like. They’ll often add extra wines as well as they get to know what you like. Don’t worry, this doesn’t increase the cost.
• Beware of days places are closed. These vary a lot and Google is not always accurate. Best to contact the winery directly, Whats App tends to be the best method for contacting many businesses in South America.
• You can get a wine pass to visit some of the wineries and have just a glass of wine. We didn’t find out about this until too late but it might have been a good way to visit a range of wineries in the area. www.winepass.com.ar. (But then, why would you want to visit more than one in a day?)
• You can do bus wine tours or hire a private driver. Renting bikes is possible but the distances can be quite far between wineries and some are on gravel roads. There are bike lanes in some areas. For the most flexibility it’s best to hire a car. For tips on how we hired a car for a lot less than the international rental car rates see our Mendoza post. This also gives you the chance to stay on a finca, or small farm.
• There’s a company called Argentina Wine Shipping that will ship bottles around the world. We haven’t used them, just saw a sign. No doubt there’s taxes involved.
• Fun fact we learned from Federico: 100 years ago only 50% of Mendoza spoke Spanish. The rest was a mix of English, French, Italian and others.